Responses to the Coup d'etat in Honduras on Sunday June 28, with special emphasis on producing English-language versions of commentaries by Honduran scholars and editorial writers and addressing the confusion encouraged by lack of basic knowledge about Honduras.

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

No More Constitution

The Micheletti regime, about 4 am this morning, violently dislodged the protesters outside the Brazilian embassy with tear gas, pepper spray and water canons. Radio Globo reports THEY SUSPENDED THE CONSTITUTION and declared a state of emergency. Among the rights suspended are the right of free circulation and assembly.

There are many people hurt, and reports of at leaast one death as a result. Update: Adrienne Pine, reporting that police are surrounding the hospital where the wounded were brought, says there were "17 critically injured patients (3 already dead)". Vos el Soberano reports that the police have surrounded the hospital with the injured and are removing them to an unknown location.

A friend who lives a couple of kilometers from the Brazilian embassy wrote at 4:30 this morning to report hearing gunshots:
We can hear gun shots and more from our house, about 2km from the Brazilian
Embassy. There are hundreds injured. We can hear many gunshots.
This as Martha Lorena Alvarado, of the de facto regime, denies that any shots were fired.

Romeo Vasquez Velasquez said "we will maintain the order no matter what the cost. "

The military has occupied the Boulevard de los Proceres closing it, and surrounds the Brazilian embassy. They have stationed a military truck with loudspeakers outside the Brazilian embassy and are broadcasting the National Anthem at full volume. They've stationed sharpshooters on top of the buildings around the Brazilian embassy.

Channel 36 is off the air because the millitary have cut off its electricity. Radio Globo continues to experience periodic outages, but has continued broadcasting. Radio Progresso shut down last evening at 5:20 local time because the owners anticipated violence, but is back on the air this morning.

Radio Globo reports that the military is cordoning off the area around the US embassy now, and has just told all the foreign press to leave the area.

Jose Miguel Insulza reported early this morning that he cannot travel to Honduras because of the closure of the airports.

Military special forces, probably Cobras, have been sighted outside the Brazilian embassy preparing to break into the embassy. Currently they are breaking in to and invading the building next door to the embassy.

At 9:30 am, a caller to Radio Globo reported that tear gas had been tossed into the headquarters of the Comité de Familiares de Detenidos Desaparacidos de Honduras (COFADEH) in Tegucigalpa. Telesur has an interview with Luz Patricia Mejia, president of the Interamerican Commission on Human Rights, in which she notes that the de facto government is violating human rights in its dispersal of the protesters. In a statement on its website, the IACHR reminds the Micheletti government that "demonstrations are essential to democratic life in societies and is a vital social interest."

4 comments:

Andrew said...

Are you listening? Are they actually storming the Brazilian Embassy? What is going to come of this?

RNS said...

No, they have NOT invaded the embassy yet, but its certainly something they're considering. Yes, we're listening to a variety of broadcast media this morning.

TITO said...

Don´t forget that the military also used a Long Range Acoustic Device.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Range_Acoustic_Device

RAJ said...

The Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations governs what a host country can and cannot do with the embassy of another country in its nation.

This convention has not, of course, been honored without exception. But the company the Honduran de facto regime would keep if it did violate the embassy includes such groups of actors as the Iranian students who took over the US Embassy in Tehran in 1981, initiating the Iran hostage crisis.

In other words, if the regime were to act out their fantasy of seizing President Zelaya, they would join the most extreme regimes in modern world history.

If they have not done so already.